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You have the right to record police in public, federal court rules
- xwdv 6y agoAll this will do is make police react to someone bringing up a phone to record video similar to someone pulling out a knife or a gun. Beat the shit out of them quickly before they can start recording, put em in cuffs.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI hope you're wrong. But if you're right, the answer is to record that, by enough people that they can't arrest them all or beat them all up.
- myself248 6y agoSo, streaming your dashcam video off-site the whole time you're in the car isn't practical given bandwidth constraints. But what if it's only when you're being pulled over? What if that happened automatically? Police lights have distinctive flashing. It should be possible to analyze the images from a rear-facing camera, pick out the flashing, and start up a stream. Bonus points if your lawyer automatically gets an email with a link to view it live, in case they happen to be in the office... Seriously, this should be an app.
- hedora 6y agoSounds like “Hey Siri, I’m being pulled over” (which is a third party shortcut you have to install) https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/iphone-police-shortcut-record-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/iphone-police-shortcut-rec...
- bnj 6y agoI’m curious to go back and read the actual ruling, it’s surprising that the summary suggests that members of the public in public spaces have some expectation of privacy— that seems to run in the face of what I’ve previously read about photography in public. Is it the surreptitious nature of the recording that creates the issue?
- wiml 6y agoThe law appears to be this one[1], which bans secretly recording "wire" communications or "oral" communications, the latter specifically meaning speech. So it sounds like, in addition to secrecy, it's the audio that's at issue; a pure video recording wouldn't fall under this law even if done without knowledge or consent. The opinion itself is here[2]. In fact the first two sentences of the opinion mention that expectation of privacy is irrelevant to this case: > Massachusetts, like other states concerned about the threat to privacy that commercially available electronic eavesdropping devices pose, makes it a crime to record another person's words secretly and without consent. But, unlike other concerned states, Massachusetts does not recognize any exceptions based on whether that person has an expectation of privacy in what is recorded. [1] https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Section99 https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Cha... [2] http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/19-1586P-01A.pdf http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/19-1586P-01A.pdf
- jerry80 6y agoNotably, they struck down a state law forbidding recording police in public. This is great! Police need accountability. Now we just need some accountability for law makers. Who thought it was a good idea to ban recording police? What could the justification for that law possibly be?
- jlmorton 6y agoThe law didn't ban recording police officers, it banned one-party secret recordings, and the police were treated the same as everyone else.
- icelancer 6y agoYeah, this is actually an interesting case and one well worth litigating. I agree with the outcome (perhaps obviously) but it's good to have it argued in open court.
- Retric 6y agoWhat you just described would outlaw security cameras which is clearly not what the actual law said.
- wiml 6y agoI linked the law in my other comment — to this non-lawyer's reading, it forbids security cameras that capture audio, but not video-only surveillance cameras.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- athms 6y agoIn California, the two-party consent rule only applies when there is an expectation of privacy. As an example, dash cams that record audio are legal in California. However, there can be cases when somebody expects to have a confidential conversation with you (on the phone, standing next to the door, or from the backseat) and you must notify them of the audio recording.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hprotagonist 6y agonever thought i’d see UHub here! this has been a long-running massachusetts thing: PD hates being recorded in public. MA is also one of the very last remaining two-party consent states, which is also an oddity.
- loeg 6y agoWA is also two-party consent for recording.
- imglorp 6y agoIs that a "reasonable expectation of privacy thing" because that's hard to argue on a public street.
- 8bitsrule 6y agoI found a WA law against recording private communications unless you first announce (or it's apparent) that you're recording it ... or you're a 'frequently-published' media employee (in which case consent can't be withdrawn). https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.73.030 https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.73.030 (I didn't find one, but I suspect that any public-recording law would be more restrictive.) "The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals first acknowledged the First Amendment right of citizens to film police officers carrying out their duties in public in the case Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436 (1995). Later, in Lewis v. State, Dept. of Licensing, 157 Wash.2d 446 (2006), the Washington State Supreme Court also ruled in favor of recording public police activity in the context of a traffic stop." http://mrsc.org/Home/Stay-Informed/MRSC-Insight/August-2019/Rights-and-Limits-on-Filming-in-Public-Facilities.aspx http://mrsc.org/Home/Stay-Informed/MRSC-Insight/August-2019/... <== "Rights and Limits on Filming in Public Facilities"
- renewiltord 6y agoMeaningless. The right is meaningless in practice. You will be threatened with arrest and likely arrested for resisting arrest if you actually are in danger of videoing anything that's important. The actual act will likely be obscured by policemen who will stand in between, block the view, or shine their flashlights into your camera. If I see the cops doing something obviously insane, I will turn and walk away. I didn't see anything. When you engage with power, you know not to threaten it.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago> If I see the cops doing something obviously insane, I will turn and walk away. I didn't see anything. Well, I'm glad that not everyone reacts that way! People have managed to record police on important matters, and those videos have had a huge impact! The protests that began this summer are among the largest in US history.
- frabbit 6y agoAll rights are meaningless in practice if you are willing to rollover and ignore them. The good news is that there are other people that are willing to exercize those rights: e.g. Bay Area Transparency https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwv35xL9AFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwv35xL9AFI
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago> ' If I see the cops doing something obviously insane, I will turn and walk away. I didn't see anything' Oh my, we'd still live like medieval peasants with that attitude
- Simulacra 6y agoDoes anyone have an estimate of how many times the court has ruled on this in favor of recording? I'm surprised this is still a question.
- darig 6y agoToo bad you don't have the right to not be harassed and illegally detained or murdered, as the DA will refrain from bringing charges against the agents of their tyranny.
- barney54 6y agoThis is an obviously correct result, it’s just a bummer it took a while to get here. Now the next step is to hold police personally liable for violations of people’s rights.
- op03 6y agoCan we record our Bosses and Shrinks too?
- thereisnospork 6y agoSure. They are of course free to no longer be your bosses and/or shrinks though.
- hedora 6y agoDepends on the state, and whether the cameras are visible.
- ccleve 6y agoThe Supreme Court decided Tanzin v Tanzir a few days ago. They held federal agents personally liable for putting innocent Muslims on the no-fly list because they wouldn't inform on their community. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-71_qol1.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-71_qol1.pdf The courts are getting closer to what you ask.
- giantg2 6y agoSimilar rulings about recording the police have happened in the recent past too (past couple years).
- cody3222 6y agoPolice actively try to resist this. I saw something really interesting when getting pulled over by the police a while back (on a boat). When they saw us recording them while they were writing a ticket, they shined a bright flashlight at our camera so that it would ruin the exposure and not capture anything useful. They were very deliberate about this and it was quite effective. Something does seem wrong about police in public not wanting to be recorded while doing their (taxpayer funded) job and holding extra power over the citizen (a police's word in court generally comes with a special authority).
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- vlunkr 6y agoI agree with the thought process here, but the reality is that almost no one wants to be recorded in public, especially knowing that it can easily be posted and shared online, where they will likely look like the bad guy.
- chokeartist 6y agoWhat does that matter? We are talking about cops -- aka taxpayer-paid dudes with guns. If anything these are the folks you should want some cameras on when bullets start flying.
- viztor 6y agothe right to record isn't necessarily the right to publish.
- dgs_sgd 6y agoAs the parent comment says, police are tax payer funded and hold extra power over citizens. I think that trumps them being worried about "looking like the bad guy".
- anonunivgrad 6y agoSay that you subdued a drug addict, who resisted arrest and was having a panic attack, according to the department prescribed method for that exact circumstance while waiting for an ambulance, and then say that the person died maybe because of a drug overdose, maybe because you used the subdual method incorrectly, and then say that the video was released, say that video incited national riots labeling your actions as murderous, and say that anyone who defended you had their entire life destroyed by cancel culture, and then say that a politically motivated state AG charged you with murder under a theory that is discredited in almost every other jurisdiction in the country (felony murder without a merger doctrine). That is an extreme example, but it could happen. To avoid that kind of thing, a rational, honest police officer, who has no other marketable skills at age 37 and doesn't want to be tried in the court of public opinion circa 2020, might resist being filmed.
- aerovistae 6y agoWasn't this already established by the supreme court? edit: it was an appeals court. so why is this a headline? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glik_v._Cunniffe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glik_v._Cunniffe
- alexeldeib 6y agoInterestingly, the OP was ruled by the same court as Glik v. Cunniffe. Different judges. Would be nice to see it ruled on by the Supreme Court to set precedent at that level, I'd assume there isn't a precedent from SC based on these two cases.
- hedora 6y agoThis was about a ban on secretly recording the police while they’re in public, which implies the on-duty police have fewer protections than normal citizens. The other case was about a law attempting to give police more protections than normal citizens.
- jsperson 6y agoHighly recommend the YouTube channel “audit the audit”. They show recordings of police interactions with commentary by a knowledgeable lawyer. It’s both entertaining and informative.
- jxramos 6y agoHow about recording anyone in public?
- jxramos 6y agoThings go in the other direction too: badge cams (and now even barrel mounted cams) have captured some chaotic moments that give a glimpse into the crazy stuff cops deal with from a crazy intense first person perspective. I think there's YouTube channels now dedicated to uploading badge cam footage.
- HarryHirsch 6y agoThat's actually the best argument for other viewpoints. We have bodycam videos (unless, of course, the cop switches his off because he's going to step outside the confines of the law), now let's also have the impressions of bystanders.
- giantg2 6y agoIf cops are required (maybe by mechanical/tech constraints) to record via the body cam, that does remove some of the incentive for them to tell others not to record them. There's already a record of them.
- HarryHirsch 6y agoIt's not about incentives, it's about opportunities. Why should free citizens not have the opportunity to tell their side of the story with pictures? The cops have all the opportunity they need, and the backup of the political apparatus as well.
- giantg2 6y agoI never said that people shouldn't have that right. Just that the incentive for an officer to violate that right can go down if the officer already knows that they are being recorded by body cams (if it's physically mandatory and the storing organization isn't corrupt).
- infogulch 6y agoExcept when the body cam footage inexplicably vanishes most inconveniently (say, during subpoena with a defending cop) and everyone just goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, repeatedly.
- balfirevic 6y agoThat sure is nice. Meanwhile in Croatia, filming the police is a violation of GDPR, according to Croatian data protection agency.
- throwawaysea 6y agoIn America, I believe everyone has the right to record anything in public? This includes citizens recording police, police recording citizens, cities recording public spaces, and residents recording their doorways and streets.
- Keverw 6y agoYeah, you have no expectation of privacy in public. However if you go to say Walmart and start recording, they have to right to ask you to leave or stop.
- pmoriarty 6y agoRegardless of the laws, there's likely to be more and more recording in the future as surveillance technology advances and more smaller, more sophisticated, and more covert. Even as far back as a decade ago or more there were posts on HN of youtube videos showing insect-cam R&D proposals for the military. Eventually something like that is bound to make its way down to the consumer level, but even short of that cameras have been getting smaller and more covert. Today most people have to stand near and point their phones at the police to capture a decent image, but long telephoto lenses are available where you can capture video from far away, and technologies such as Google Glass proved that cameras can be integrated in one's glasses. That sort of thing will just get more and more prevalent and recordings of police and everyone else are likely to become much more common, no matter what the law says.
- darksaints 6y agoOkay, so how many officers could be found guilty of this: > Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. > For the purpose of Section 242, acts under "color of law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim. If a cop orders you to stop filming them, which the courts have affirmed that citizens have a right to do, they have committed a felony, punishable by prison sentence.
- ne9xt 6y agoI don’t think that’s how it works. Police officers can and frequently do issue unlawful orders, and you have no legal obligation to comply with those unlawful orders.
- electrondood 6y agoThere's no law against a police officer stating a request in an authoritative voice, fishing to see if you'll just go ahead and comply. It's on us to clarify whether that's a request or a lawful order.
- remote_phone 6y agoIf I get arrested recording the police in public, do I have any recourse? Can I sue the police department for false arrest?
- FireBeyond 6y agoPolice Chiefs have said, on the record, with reference to photographers who have been arrested (not necessarily for filming the police): "We can't expect our officers to be constitutional lawyers." http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
- onecommentman 6y agoThis is one thing Reddit has over HN. By this time, someone with actual insight into law enforcement practices would chime in with justifications for keeping a ban. I’m not seeing that, thus I take the entire discussion with several grains of salt. HN more of an echo chamber than Reddit...wow. Don’t know what those justifications would be, but we sure won’t know if no one is bringing that information to the table.
- TruthHurts44 6y agoDefund. Defund. Defund.
- YesThatTom2 6y agoHeadline should read “Court re-affirms you can video record cops despite the fact that cops have been beating/arresting/killing people for doing so even in states where it is explicitly legal for years”. Which states? Only 50 states. It’s good to know that know it is legal in the remaining states too.